Overture / Agorawd

Creative workshop / Gweithdy Creadigol #2

Allen Raine: the Opera?

Allen Raine Opera Study Group exploring character text as part of the ‘overture’ creative workshop.

A workshop to explore the concept of ‘overture’. In opera the overture is played at the start of the work. Here the themes of the work will be presented in miniature to be further developed in the body of the work. These themes can include leitmotifs for particular characters or structures of feelings within the work. In this workshop participants were asked to think about the character they were most drawn to in the novel Queen of the Rushes and to bring a passage from the novel that was particularly resonant for them. Group discussion was translated into vocal and physical improvisation resulting in a sung ‘overture’.